Homich needs to live within boundaries

July 9, 2010|By Lauren Ritchie, COMMENTARY

An independent report on whether Mount Dora City Council member James Homich abused employees, created a hostile place for them to work and tried to use his office for his own advantage is 24 typed, single-spaced pages.

Unfortunately, a reader must slog through the sticky morass to page 21 to find the heart of the matter.

The crux isn't the conclusions — they're too varied and convoluted to mean much. They're presented in legalese, a foreign language that trips the tongue and dulls the senses, leaving the brain flapping the lips with increasing stupidity.

The charges and counter charges of "playing politics" are bunk, too — that's just staffers and Homich himself looking for an explanation of a simple situation that has spun out of control.

The linchpin is quite uncomplicated: Homich never adequately learned manners or how to control his temper. He's a bully.

Homich, of course, doesn't think that is the case. He sees himself as a crusader whose duty is to "address and voice issues and concerns" and to fight for citizens, according to the report. He contended that he has less involvement with the staff than any other council member. And he said he believes the police chief is out to quash his free speech to protect his position.

The truth emerged following the detailed description of an incident involving a banner sign posted by County Commission candidate and real-estate agency owner Buddy Atkins. Mount Dora code-enforcement workers wanted it taken down, saying it violated codes.

Homich opined in a e-mail that it didn't, and staffers were fit to be tied over Homich's failing to back them up. Apparently, they expect unqualified support from council members. Homich's reading of that particular rule seems to be mostly right — the sign is still up, now attached to a hard surface.

But, being right or wrong isn't the issue. This is: "Mr. Homich believed that he has every right to be as harsh as he wants to be to represent the citizens of the city," wrote Dorothy Green, an Orlando lawyer who authored the June 29 report on the mess.

…every right to be as harsh as he wants to be…

Homich is badly mistaken, and his belligerence in sticking to this misguided belief has cost the city far more than the $5,614.85 Green has billed for so far. There's also a cost in civility and human decency.

Homich does not have a "right" to yell at employees. He doesn't have a "right" to make vague threats or to berate employees when he doesn't agree with how they're doing their job. There's no "right" to constant confrontation over the most banal of matters, such as a little too much mulch on a sidewalk in front of his house, as outlined in the report. No "right" exists for police dispatchers immediately to recognize him as a council member and vice mayor when he calls the department to complain about dust blowing at construction sites, another incident detailed in the report.

These are not the "rights" of an elected official in a civilized society. The notion that fighting for citizens gives elected officials these rights is bogus. This is looking for a socially-acceptable excuse to be nasty and mean.

The real consequence of bad behavior by a superior is the toll on employee morale and in intense personal fear of retribution. No wonder. Anyone who thinks that the way employees feel doesn't matter — just do your job and go home — has never successfully managed human beings. Nothing will bring down an organization more quickly and completely than people who feel oppressed and underappreciated.

Everybody is tired of the churlish, high-rhetoric bickering. There are ways in the Mount Dora bureaucracy in which Homich — and any other citizen — can protest what he or she thinks are wrongs.

If employees are truly a lazy bunch of n'er do wells, the solution is to work through the city manager — or to fire the manager if he fails to demand accountability. As included in the report, jumping out of your van because you think police officers are flirting with women and demanding to know whether the officers are conducting "an official stop" is out of line. Homich needs to follow the rules.

There is, however, a loophole in the regulations that is not nailed down. The city has directives about how employees must behave to one another and to the public. It has rules about whether council members can demand services or direct employees. (They can't — that's the job of the city manager.)

But it has no written rules about how council members must treat employees.

So — amazingly — Mayor Melissa DeMarco is working with the city manager to come up with a code of conduct for elected officials. It's a sorry day when one is needed. Common sense and mutual respect ought to govern human interaction. DeMarco said she hopes the proposed rules will be presented to the council at the same time it discusses Green's report.

"Something good has to come out of this," said DeMarco, who said "Homich-bashing" won't improve the situation. "The report just shows you have to spell out the boundaries for people."

Lauren Ritchie can be reached at Lritchie@orlandosentinel.com You may leave her a message at 352-742-5918. Her blog is online at http://www.orlandosentinel.com/laurenonlake.